NateW

I agree strongly with everything Corey said. I've bought a few boards via the classifieds here, the only problem is that I like them all for different reasons so I still have all of them. :) But after trying different boards I asked Donek to make a still 172 AX with a 13m sidecut and a 19cm waist to get the high-speed handling of a long board with the low-speed maneuverability of a shorter board, and it worked out just like I wanted. One of the boards I bought via the classifieds was a 182 AX, and I don't find it more tiring than the 172. I never ride consecutive days, but I always ride until I'm completely exhausted. Where I ride (moguls vs groomers) has a much bigger impact on my stamina than which board I ride. I haven't noticed the choice of board making any difference in how quickly I tire out.

I built spacers out of 1/2" HDPE years ago, mostly just because the board's inserts didn't match the my bindings. It was a bit heavy (more due to the two sets of fasteners than the spacers themselves) but it worked very well. The board broke before the spacers did. :)

I agree with this idea.

I wonder if an Olympic Super-G would help pique everyone's interest. Or better yet, BX without the berms. Foam cores certainly got a bad reputation due to the skis and boards made with them in the past. It does seem like technology should give us something better than wood though, if it hasn't already. Base technology is due for a revolution, too. Teflon? :) How about a plate system, with fluid-filled dampers extending from the ends of the plate to the tip and tail? With the right damper design you could use it to improve torsional flex a lot as well (not through damping, but through rigidity orthogonal to the damper axis).

I'm guessing they'll try to use ebay, craigslist, or a used sporting goods store. Hopefully they can spell "Prior" because that will be easy to search for.

At the top of the terrain park: "What the hell?" Later in the day, same place, a skier asked... "So are you going to drop in switch?" I shrugged. "Yeah, maybe." "Are you serious?" I laughed. "Yep."

That sucks... sorry to hear it.

If I recall correctly, the newscaster's exact words were, "The IOC does not recognize marijuana as a performance enhancing drug." It remains one of the funniest things I've ever heard on TV. I thought it would be funny (sad, but funny) if they took his medal, so the guy who got the gold would have to go through life explaining that he wasn't actually the fastest rider on the course that day, but the faster guy was stoned. Anyway, I think it's perfectly reasonable to mention such a notable story alongside a notable name in a list of notable riders. It would be conspicuously absent if it wasn't there.

:lol: Who did that?

Guess I better start saving now.

Is the metal AX basically the same shape as the non-metal? Or does it use a "decambered nose" profile like the newer race boards?

If you enter the turn with more speed, you can lean in further (more "inclination"), thus getting more edge angle, thus turning tighter. Up to a point, anyway. You can also tighten up the radius a bit by increasing your edge angle without fully leaning in (this is "angulation"). But that's cheating. Go faster and you won't have to. :) A shorter sidecut radius will also give you tighter turns, but that's less fun than going faster.

I have been riding with size-27 UPZs and TD2 stepins for about three seasons now with no issues. I did so today, in fact. :)

I vote centered. I rode hard boots on freeride boards at 45/30 for a few seasons, but eventually my rear knee started to hurt. Maybe I just got old. :) But now I like less splay... I have a board with a 23cm waist set up with 45/40 angles and it works fine. My intuition tells me that there's probably a range of stance angles that's too low for a proper alpine riding style (ass over the tail of the board) and too high for a proper soft boot riding style (ass to the inside of the turn). 45/40 works for alpine, 40/35 might... dunno about anything lower. I haven't tried it. But if you can't make it work, consider going up to 45/40.

It seems to me that a given sidecut has a given 'happy range' of speed, where bigger sidecuts are happier at higher speeds. For me, 13m is the sweet spot between fast enough to savor a long low carve, but slow/tight enough to make complete linked carves without running out of piste or into people. For mid-week and good snow I've got an F2 RS 183 with a 15m or 16m sidecut that's tons of fun on just a few wide runs, but kind of awkward on most runs because I can't get enough speed to lean in far enough and turn it tight enough, without lots of angulation or a bit of skidding, and those feel like cheating, takes the fun out of it.

Moving my bindings forward fixed that for me. If the bindings are mounted aft of center, I had to lean forward to get my weight in the right place, which burned out my front thigh. With the bindings centered, I can keep equal weight on each leg, and still have me weight in the right place over the edge.

It doesn't take much of a tail to ride switch on groomed terrain, I've done plenty of 180s on my Donek FC 182 and F2 RS 183 and never caught the tail on anything. Cant, lift, and stance make no difference really. Riding switch is 90% in your head. Once you get past the mental block and start to practice riding switch, it turns out the riding switch is still just riding - if you practice, you'll learn. This was all done on an all-mountain board that has a tail very similar to a Donek AX or Coiler AM: I have been doing 360s off mid-sized park jumps for 3-4 seasons, and started doing switch 360s this season - take off switch, spin, land switch. Managed a half-dozen of them last weekend, some sloppy but some clean. Trying to work up the nerve to go for a 540 before this season is over. I've said that in other seasons before, though. :)

It might help if you clarified what you meant by the highlighted terms.

This minor problem can be overcome by attaching the channel-bearing component of the invention to the bottom of the boot via some mechanism that provides a strong, secure attachment. And preferably easy removal as well, so that prototypes can be interchanged easily with each iteration of the development process. For example, you could affix brackets like these to the top of the channel-bearing member... http://tinyurl.com/yap39jg

I completely agree that there's always room for improvement. But what we have here is a design which shall defenestrate an exceptionally valuable feature of my favorite incumbent: in secure myself to my board, I simply put my toe into the loop, and put weight on my heel; this contrivance requires that I precisely align my foot with the binding, and slide my foot forward about a foot (pun intended) while maintaining that precise alignment. Meanwhile, the biggest drawback to the incumbent - the interference of solidified dihydrogen monoxide in the workings of the apparatus - is apparently going to get worse due to the increased surface area of the boot/binding interface. If one wishes to improve, I believe it is beneficial to start from - or at least, be aware of - a definition of "improve" in the context of the invention. (I like big words too.)

I have no idea what you are talking about. So,

That was my concern as well. Getting in and out sounds hard. Making it easier sounds fragile (rollers) or sloppy (tolerances). Also, this is profound: Intec has worked really well for me. I've had one failure in about 15 years. The only recurring problem has been snow clogging, but compared to time spent closing toe levers (and scraping snow off of toe/heel blocks), I think I've still come out ahead. For me to switch from Intec I'd need to believe that the snow clogging issue is greatly improved, and I only see that getting worse with a channel in the bottom of the boot.

50+ angles can work in the pipe too. :) If it's switch riding that makes you favor the duck stance, consider spending a few runs working on switch riding with 35-55 degree angles. Skid 180, link a couple turns, skid back to forward, repeat until it's second nature. It's nowhere near as hard as it might seem... if you can ride switch, you can ride switch. It might take a bit of experimenting to figure out how to arrange your body (upper body especially - I try to keep my lower body in the same position regardless of direction). But it's not significantly harder, it's just different. For reasons that I don't understand, I'm more comfortable riding switch at 55/60 than I was at 45/40 on my older wider boards. I have no idea where to find the dual-purpose bindings you're looking for, though.

That's the one!

This is at least the 3rd hybrid hard/soft ski boot system I've seen since I started skiing, so I'm a little put off by the claims that there hasn't been a new idle in ski boots in 20 years. The other two didn't succeed, and since Apex doesn't know about them, Apex hasn't learned from those failures. I don't know why they failed either. Heck, I don't even remember what they were called. Anyone else remember the ski binding that had the funky zig-zag arm that cradled your calf? Oh wait... http://www.amazon.com/Rossignol-Soft-Boots-Mens-Mondo/dp/B000EE8YYQ So Apex is not the 3rd, it's the 4th. http://www.coloradodiscountskis.com/store/product1133.html Maybe the 5th. http://www.buzzillions.com/reviews/men-rossignol-soft-3-ski-boots-used-2003-reviews 6th?